Physics Challenge for Teachers and Students

Boris Korsunsky Citation: The Physics Teacher 51, 567 (2013); doi: 10.1119/1.4830078 View online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1119/1.4830078 View Table of Contents: http://scitation.aip.org/content/aapt/journal/tpt/51/9?ver=pdfcov Published by the American Association of Physics Teachers

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Physics Challenge for Teachers and Students

w Squaring the circle: Now in 3D!
Two identical cubes have mass m and side r each. The cubes rest very close to each other on a large horizontal table as shown. A uniform sphere of mass m and radius r is gently placed on top of the cubes as shown. Once the sphere is released, it begins to push the cubes apart and slide downward. The acceleration due to gravity is g. Find the speed v of the sphere at the moment it hits the table. Express your answer in terms of the given quantities and a numeric coefficient with at least three significant figures. Neglect friction between all surfaces.

Boris Korsunsky, Column Editor

Weston High School, Weston, MA 02493 challenges@aapt.org

Michael Roth, student (Neuqua Valley High School, Naperville, IL) Thomas Salyard (Scotus Central Catholic High School, Columbus, NE) Eduarda S Marta, student (Infanta D. Maria Secondary School, Coimbra, Portugal) Jason L. Smith (Richland Community College, Decatur, IL) Asif Shakur (Salisbury University, Salisbury, MD) Nihar Sheth, student (Neuqua Valley High School, Naperville, IL) Cssio dos Santos Sousa, student (Instituto Tecnolgico de Aeronutica, So Paulo, Brazil) Clint Sprott (University of Wisconsin Madison, WI) Alice Zheng, student (Wuxi Tianyi High School, Wuxi, Jiangsu, China)

Guidelines for contributors:

We ask that all solutions, preferably in Word format, be submitted to the dedicated email address challenges@aapt.org. Each message will receive an automatic acknowledgment. The subject line of each message should be the same as the name of the solution file (see the instructions below). The deadline for submitting the solutions is the last day of the corresponding month. We can no longer guarantee that well publish every successful solvers name; each month, a representative selection of names will be published, both in print and on the web. If your name isfor instanceTed Cruz, please name the file Dec13Cruz (do not include your first initial) when submitting the December solution. If you have a message for the Column Editor, you may contact him at korsunbo@post.harvard.edu; however, please do not send your solutions to this address. As always, we look forward to your contributions and hope that they will include not only solutions but also your own Challenges that you wish to submit for the column. Many thanks to all contributors and we hope to hear from many more of you in the future! Boris Korsunsky, Column Editor

We received a large number of solutions (not all of them correct) to our September Challenge, C'est la v. It was gratifying to see quite a few new participants, including many high school students from all over the world. (It was slightly less gratifying to see many of the high school students fail to follow the submission guidelines. Ah well...) We are pleased to recognize the following contributors: Robert Barr, student (Neuqua Valley High School, Naperville, IL) Philip Blanco (Grossmont College, El Cajon, CA) Phil Cahill (The SI Organization, Inc., Rosemont PA) Art Hovey (Galvanized Jazz Band, Milford, CT) Jos Ignacio iguez de la Torre (Universidad de Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain) Per-Olof Jansson (Ericsson Telecommunications, Stockholm, Sweden) Matthew W. Milligan (Farragut High School, Knoxville, TN) Carl E. Mungan (U. S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD) Thomas Olsen (Northern Virginia Community College, VA) Joseph Rizcallah (SABIS Educational Services, Adma, Lebanon)
DOI: 10.1119/1.4830078

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THE PHYSICS TEACHER Vol. 51, DECEMBER 2013

567